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[thirdparty/man-pages.git] / man2 / posix_fadvise.2

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.\" Copyright 2003 Abhijit Menon-Sen <ams@wiw.org>
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.TH POSIX_FADVISE 2 2003-02-14 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
posix_fadvise \- predeclare an access pattern for file data
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #define _XOPEN_SOURCE 600
.B #include <fcntl.h>
.sp
.BI "int posix_fadvise(int " fd ", off_t " offset ", off_t " len ", int " advice ");"
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
Programs can use
.BR posix_fadvise ()
to announce an intention to access
file data in a specific pattern in the future, thus allowing the kernel
to perform appropriate optimizations.

The \fIadvice\fP applies to a (not necessarily existent) region starting
at \fIoffset\fP and extending for \fIlen\fP bytes (or until the end of
the file if \fIlen\fP is 0) within the file referred to by \fIfd\fP.
The advice is not binding; it merely constitutes an expectation on behalf of
the application.

Permissible values for \fIadvice\fP include:
.TP
.B POSIX_FADV_NORMAL
Indicates that the application has no advice to give about its access
pattern for the specified data.
If no advice is given for an open file,
this is the default assumption.
.TP
.B POSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL
The application expects to access the specified data sequentially (with
lower offsets read before higher ones).
.TP
.B POSIX_FADV_RANDOM
The specified data will be accessed in random order.
.TP
.B POSIX_FADV_NOREUSE
The specified data will be accessed only once.
.TP
.B POSIX_FADV_WILLNEED
The specified data will be accessed in the near future.
.TP
.B POSIX_FADV_DONTNEED
The specified data will not be accessed in the near future.
.SH "RETURN VALUE"
On success, zero is returned.
On error, an error number is returned.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EBADF
The \fIfd\fP argument was not a valid file descriptor.
.TP
.B EINVAL
An invalid value was specified for \fIadvice\fP.
.TP
.B ESPIPE
The specified file descriptor refers to a pipe or FIFO. (Linux actually
returns EINVAL in this case.)
.SH VERSIONS
.BR posix_fadvise ()
appeared in kernel 2.5.60.
Glibc support has been provided since version 2.2.
.\" Actually as fadvise64() -- MTK
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
POSIX.1-2001.
Note that the type of the
.I len
parameter was changed from
.I size_t
to
.I off_t
in POSIX.1-2003 TC1.
.SH NOTES
Under Linux, \fBPOSIX_FADV_NORMAL\fP sets the readahead window to the
default size for the backing device; \fBPOSIX_FADV_SEQUENTIAL\fP doubles
this size, and \fBPOSIX_FADV_RANDOM\fP disables file readahead entirely.
These changes affect the entire file, not just the specified region
(but other open file handles to the same file are unaffected).

\fBPOSIX_FADV_WILLNEED\fP initiates a
non-blocking read of the specified region into the page cache.
The amount of data read may be decreased by the kernel depending
on virtual memory load.
(A few megabytes will usually be fully satisfied,
and more is rarely useful.)

In kernels before 2.6.18, \fBPOSIX_FADV_NOREUSE\fP had the
same semantics as \fBPOSIX_FADV_WILLNEED\fP.
This was probably a bug; since kernel 2.6.18, this flag is a no-op.

\fBPOSIX_FADV_DONTNEED\fP attempts to free cached pages associated with
the specified region.
This is useful, for example, while streaming large
files.
A program may periodically request the kernel to free cached data
that has already been used, so that more useful cached pages are not
discarded instead.

Pages that have not yet been written out will be unaffected, so if the
application wishes to guarantee that pages will be released, it should
call
.BR fsync (2)
or
.BR fdatasync (2)
first.
.SH BUGS
In kernels before 2.6.6, if
.I len
was specified as 0, then this was interpreted literally as "zero bytes",
rather than as meaning "all bytes through to the end of the file".
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR posix_madvise (2),
.BR readahead (2),
.BR posix_fallocate (3) ,
.BR feature_test_macros (7)